Hindu News

Hindu News

Friday, March 7, 2014

The Hindu
Lt. Governor of Puducherry Virendra Kataria looking at an exhibit on
Sanskrit language, after inaugurating an exhibition at Bharat Nivas in
Auroville on Thursday. Photo: S.S. Kumar

In most people’s perception, Sanskrit is a dead
language, and there is very little correlation between the language and
the modern world. The newer generation knows very little of the language
and it is thought to be an extremely difficult language.

Bharat Nivas is now hosting a series of events that will help dispel these myths about the language.

Dance performance

Part
of the celebrations was a dance performance based on the works of Jiddu
Krishnamurthi on Thursday. The performance was by five dancers in five
different styles – Smitha Madhav for Bharatnatyam, Masaka Ono for
Odissi, Prateeksha Kashi for Kuchupudi, Rashmi Menon for Mohiniattam and
Achutha Manasa dancing in the Kathak style.

The show titled ‘Essence of Life’ is the brainchild of Dega Dev Kumar Reddy, who produced the show.

The
idea of the show is to bring the philosophical teachings of Jiddu
Krishnamurthi to the common man through dance. During the process of
creating the show, we made a decision to translate Krishnamurthi’s work
into Sanskrit, because the elegant power of the language goes
beautifully with the dance form, Mr. Reddy explained.

It
is also a way to try and bring back tradition to the younger
generation. This is why we incorporated traditional art forms and
Sanskrit with modern existential problems that are faced by everyone.

The
performance was divided into three parts – Essence of Meditation,
Essence of Life and the Thillana, How to be free from the self, he said.

On Thursday evening, Lieutenant Governor Virendra
Kataria, who attended the show, also inaugurated the Ujjeevanam
exhibition that shows how Sanskrit is also a modern language. Modern
philosophical and even scientific lessons are present in many of the
ancient Sanskrit texts.

The exhibition also features
panels with little known factoids on Sanskrit, like how the first words
spoken through the phonograph were in Sanskrit by Max Mueller.

Along
with the exhibition, on Saturday there is a workshop at Kalakendra on
chanting in Sanskrit and the magic and logic of the language from 9.30am
and a talk on the Relevance of Sanskrit in South Indian Languages,
organiser of the events Tapas said.